“After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?” The Hill‘s Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer’s “fevered speculations” about an “Infowars conspiracy theory” and the way it hosted people like Jonathan “maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s” Chait and “conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch” in search of ratings bumps.

“This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats’ chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up,” Ball argued. “Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don’t know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers’ movement, whether we’re going to war with Iran? I’m just spitballing here. I actually heard some pundit on Chris Hayes last night opine that independent women in middle America were going to be swayed by what Mueller said yesterday. Are you kidding me? This is almost as bonkers and lacking in factual basis as that time Mimi Rocah said that Bernie Sanders is not pro-women because that was what her feelings told her. Rocah, by the way, a political prosecutor with no political background, is only opining at MSNBC because of her role in leading viewers to believe that any day now SDNY is going to bring down Trump and his entire family.”

Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn’t “on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R”, saying they’re really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump’s loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn’t have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries.

Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn’t serve the Democratic party, but she’s incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks.

Consider the way the Syrian province of Idlib is being reported on right now, to pick one of many possible examples. Al-Qaeda-controlled Idlib is the final stronghold of the extremist militant groups that the US and its allies flooded Syria with in a premeditated campaign to effect regime change, and Syria and its allies are fighting to recapture the region. They are using methods that are identical to those commonly used by the US and its allies, yet the bombing campaigns of the US-centralized empire receive virtually no critical coverage while western mainstream outlets like CNN and the BBC are churning out brazenly propagandistic pieces about the evils of the Assad coalition’s airstrikes.

“Civilians are dying in Idlib, just as they died in their thousands in recent US UK air strikes in eg Raqqa and Mosul,” political analyst Charles Shoebridge observed on Twitter today. “The difference is that when it’s (often unverified) claims that Russia or Syria are doing the killing, US UK media make it front page news.”

One trick Al-Qaeda in #Syria has used extensively to get the US to intervene militarily is having children plead their case. Another trick, as seen in this CNN video, is to have people with American accents do it. Both have been effective with the naive.pic.twitter.com/xkIjmchCzw

This marked discrepancy is due to the fact that western mass media outlets serve not a political party, nor even money, but the power structures of the western empire. This is the real reason why Russia hysteria has been mainlined into mainstream consciousness day in and day out for three years. Not for ratings, not to hurt Trump, not to help the Democrats, but because Russia is viewed as a disobedient geopolitical adversary by the US-centralized power alliance. That’s all it’s ever been.

There are many gaping plot holes in the Russiagate narrative that outlets like MSNBC have been bashing everyone over the head with, but the most obvious and easily provable of them is the indisputable fact that Donald Trump has escalated tensions against Russia more than any US president in decades. You never hear anyone talk about this self-evident fact in all the endless yammering about Russia, though, because it doesn’t advance the agendas of either of America’s two mainstream parties, and it doesn’t advance the interests of US imperialism. Democrats don’t like acknowledging the fact that Trump has been consistently and aggressively working directly against the interests of Moscow, and Trump supporters don’t like acknowledging that their president is just as much of a neocon-coddling globalist as those they claim to oppose, so the war machine has gone conveniently unchallenged in manufacturing new cold war escalations against a nation they’ve had marked for destruction since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In a very interesting new Grayzone interview packed full of ideas that you’ll never hear voiced on western mass media, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke openly about the various ways that Russia, China, and other nations who’ve resisted absorption into the blob of the US power alliance have been working toward the creation of a multipolar world. Ryabkov said other nations have been watching the way the dominance of the US dollar has been used to economically terrorize noncompliant nations into subservience by way of sanctions and other manipulations, with Washington expecting that the dollar and the US financial system will remain “the cardiovascular system of the whole organism.”

“That will not be the case,” Ryabkov said. “People will bypass, in literal terms. And people will find ways how to defend themselves, how to protect themselves, how to guarantee themselves against any emergencies if someone comes up at the White House or whatever, at the Treasury, at the State, and says ‘Hey guys, now we should stop what is going on in Country X, and let’s squeeze them out.’ And this country sits on the dollar. So they will be done the moment those ideas will be pronounced. So China, Russia and others, we create alternatives that we will most probably continue using not just national currencies, but baskets of currencies, currencies of third countries, other modern barter schemes.”

“We will use ways that will diminish the role of dollar and US banking system with all these risks of assets and transactions being arrested, being stopped,” Ryabkov concluded.

That, right there, is the real reason you’re being sold Russia hysteria today.

And it isn’t just on the matter of financial systems in which the unabsorbed powers are uniting against the imperial blob. Russia and China just carried out their first joint air patrol on Tuesday, drawing a hostile response from imperial vassals Japan and South Korea.

“Russian and Chinese bombers on ‘first’ joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region. The China-Russia alliance has become a reality and will last for long time,” reads a post by one Russian Twitter commentator in response to the news.

The emergence of this alliance, which the Chinese government has warned Washington is ‘not vulnerable to interference’, has been something the west has feared for a long time. A Pentagon white paper published this past May titled “Russian Strategic Intentions” mentions the word “China” 108 times. Some noteworthy excerpts:

“The world system, and American influence in it, would be completely upended if Moscow and Beijing aligned more closely.”

“The allies’ goal should be deterrence. At the same time, the US should bilaterally engage Russia to peel them away from China’s orbit.”

“He also encourages the development of the US’s ‘capability to effectively foster distrust and unease between the Russia Federation and China.'”

“Along with Beijing, Moscow seeks a multipolar world in which US hegemony comes to an end. As Alexander Lukin recently pointed out, the ‘common ideal of a multipolar world [has] played a significant role in the rapprochement between Russia and China.’”

“Russia and China were explicitly mentioned in the 2018 National Defense Strategy as the great powers with which the US is in competition. Both Russia and China have come a long way since the 1990s, and the ‘friendship’ that emerged in the immediate post-Tiananmen period and continued to grow over the years now today appears to be one of the strongest bilateral alliances on the planet.”

“Together, Russia’s tentacles on its former Soviet neighbors and Moscow’s strategic alliance with Beijing in pursuit of a multipolar world (in which the US is no longer the global hegemon) form the two main pillars upon which Putin’s grand strategy rests. All other aspects of its foreign policy behavior can be traced back to this dual-pronged grand strategy.”

I think you get the picture. From the Pentagon’s point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. Analysts like the white paper’s authors, and even The New York Times editorial board, have urged the drivers of US foreign policy to attempt to lure Moscow away from Beijing, the latter rightly perceived as the greater long-term threat to US dominance due to China’s surging economic power. But diplomacy has clearly been ruled out toward this end, with only a steadily escalating campaign to shove Russia off the world stage now deemed acceptable.

This is all happening because after the USSR fell and America emerged as the undisputed ruler of a unipolar world, it was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy, any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An “attack” on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire.

This is why we’ve seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as “enemies” as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack.

This “if you’re not obeying us you’re attacking us” mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian “attack” on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It’s got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It’s about continuing to rule the world.

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Richard/July 29, 2019

“… the war machine has gone conveniently unchallenged in manufacturing new cold war escalations against a nation they’ve had marked for destruction since the fall of the Soviet Union.”

The war machine has earmarked Russia/the Soviet Union for destruction since long before the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, the tradition of “hating the Russians” dates back to the 19th century.

America is seething mad with jealousy at the enormous size of Russia as compared with the U.S.’s puny “sea-to-shining-sea” territory. It was quite a shock to realize after 1991 that it was not, in fact, “communism” that the U.S. elite had had a beef with for 70 years… it was Russia itself!

Indeed, as someone else pointed out here, the U.S. is precisely the danger to the world that Germany was in the 1930s. Let us hope that other powers will have a way to neutralize it in a way the allies did not manage to achieve with Germany before 1939.

Jimmy Roberts/July 29, 2019

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has just voted to approve Trump’s budget, including a massive increase in military spending. Those voting in favour included Alexandra Casio-Cortez and other members of the so-called “Democratic Socialists of America.” This just goes to show that the word “Socialist” is the most commonly abused word in the English language.

The Republicans and Democrats are twins, not enemies. They both uphold US capitalism and imperialism. American politics is a theatrical farce, with slanging matches at Election times just to fight over who is to get their hands on the spoils of Office.

The working class of the USA, like its counterparts all over the world, must reject Tweedledee/Tweedledum politics, and build its own independent Socialist party to fight for its own interests against capitalist parties like the Republicans and Democrats, Tories and Labour, etc.

This has become all the more urgent and necessary and Trump and his fellow madmen, aided and abetted by the Democrats, push the world inexorably towards World War 3, and nuclear armageddon.

Stephen Morrell/July 29, 2019

Jimmy Roberts/July 30, 2019

Yes, a party of the Bolshevik type. This is the only successful template for a working class Socialist Party in history – hence the reason it is remorselessly and lyingly slandered by capitalist class propagandists, bogus “historians,” and venal “Journalists” the world over.

Although overshadowed by the muck, bloodshed, charlatanism, and gangsterism of Stalinism, the Bolshevik-led Russian Revolution of 1917 remains the greatest social upheaval in human history, and a heroic attempt to build a world socialist society. Lenin, Trotsky, and the best Bolsheviks saw the Russian Revolution as the first blow against capitalism and imperialism on a worldwide basis. They never envisaged any of the Stalinist nonsense and self-serving revisionism of “socialism in one country,” used by the Stalinist counter-revolution to justify the rule of a corrupt bureaucracy that placed its own interests and material comforts ahead of the interests of the Russian and world working class.

Stephen Morrell/July 30, 2019

Indeed. As Trotsky pointed out, his most important contribution and role wasn’t in leading the Russian revolution (as monumental as that was), but in coming to a Marxist understanding of the rise of Stalinism and the Soviet Thermidor.

Stalinism was and is the antithesis of internationalism and not only dragged the name of Bolshevism through the mud but socialism and communism itself.

Her headline (in the video) is wrong. MSNBC and Russiagate in general have not particularly damaged the ‘Left’ because the Left in the US is minuscule. (Its views are widespread, but it has no broadly effective organizations.) The Democratic Party is not a Left party, it is centrist or right-wing. What Russiagate etc. damaged was the Democratic Party. Russiagate was invented to protect the established Democratic Party leadership from the just wrath of the Democratic proggies. It has now had the unfortunate effect (for the aforesaid leadership) of convincing the proggies, whose votes will be needed in 2020, that the fix is permanently in. I think the proggies are really fed up now. I can’t think of a Democratic candidate who would be at once acceptable to the party leadership whom they would vote for. Lesser-evillism isn’t going to do it for Biden or Harris.

Howard Mettee/July 28, 2019

There is a point at which pushing the hegemonic view of US dominance of world’s resources becomes actually self destructive to US interests – in essence suicidal – not only to the US but to it’s neighbors in the world. What the hell is wrong with figuring out a multipolar world – a moderately stable equilibrium – instead of constantly bashing Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and other perceived existential threats to the US itself.

Stephen Morrell/July 28, 2019

Thanks Caitlin. There’s a domestic purpose to the Russiagate hoax that complements your essay to some extent.

After comprehensively failing to oust Trump, the longer-term domestic purposes of Russiagate and the McCarthyism 2.0 it has spawned certainly are clear and at least fivefold (probably morefold):

1. To provide the Democrats not only with an excuse for Clinton’s loss but a way of differentiating them from the GOP, because their actual differences with the GOP are next to zero.

2. A bipartisan need to keep their donors happy, especially those from the MIC who require continuing ongoing ‘threats’, nuclear and conventional’ to keep those profits rolling in (as well pointed out below by the poster of the Kennan quote).

3. To regiment the population into not dissenting or being ‘discordant’ though fear of being labelled a Russian tool (or ‘useful idiot’) — just like the original McCarthyism except Russia is now a capitalist country but non-compliant with the empire. Witness the latest grotesquery from Karmala Harris who attributes Colin Kapernik’s protests to Russian bots (!). This will continue.

4. To provide the pretext for further internet censorship and restrictions of civil liberties, especially now as the ‘war on terrorism’ is running out of steam.

5. To regiment the population onto war footing, both nuclear and conventional.

Russiagate is the malignant seed of McCarthyism 2.0 and it won’t go away easily, not even if the Democrats can find another way to differentiate themselves from the GOP, not even if Trump suddenly resigned or was clipped by the CIA. Its promoters in MSM and the ‘deep state’, along with the deep-state shills still drinking the Russiagate Kool Aid, are otherwise nurturing this malignancy as best they can in the fevered hope that McCarthyism 2.0 will spread its roots to some other more substantive allegations of Russian ‘malfeasance’.

This is a very dangerous game in the name of propping up a dying empire, an empire that doesn’t have the economic clout to match its military might, nor its veil of ‘the beacon of freedom and democracy’ that Trump has so rudely ripped away. These precarious times are being fuelled by people who should know better.

Bruce/July 28, 2019

Or this is a defensively motivated strike. Russophobic disinformation has been a constant since anti-Soviet disinformation ceased to be a constant. It has ramped up, as indicated by specific Kremlin comments made just prior to this sort of thing making daily headlines. The threat of multi-polarity has been on the horizon for some time, and while there is a consistent drip like shift in thinking among various countries closer to the Russian/Chinese camp regarding US dollar based transactions, I have not noticed a particularly compelling event or threat that is particular to the past several weeks or so. The Mueller testimony, Ryan’s comments about something that would be sufficiently compelling to change the thinking of the “never Trumpers,” and the Epstein arrest (added to which are the reports he was stunned by the denial of bail, that he was found on the floor with injury to his neck, and that there are more subpoenas and potentially more arrest warrants pending on the matter) – all of these imply a lot of people are feeling the heat these days. The perma-scapegoat in the American political psyche is Russia. I suspect pushing this button was an almost compulsive reaction. 3,500 protesters in Moscow equates to roughly a million dollar project. And of course there could easily be dual specific motivation, as there often is. Certainly a lot of people who make their careers in neo-conservative politics are unable to see things any other way, and they must be furious at their recent lack of success in impeding Russian geo-political progress. Very interested in whether others see any merit in the above conjecture.

Paticia Ormsby/July 29, 2019

I agree with what you are saying here, Bruce. I think that after three weeks in solitary confinement, Epstein realizes it’s substantially different this time. I wonder what the underlying cause of this change was. It could be something as deep as the inability to effect the desired changes in what has become a series of countries now, with economic sanctions causing misery but little else, and in the case of Iran, not even going through with missile strikes like they did ineffectually in Syria. If it is Trump finally draining the swamp, there is little evidence pointing to it, but it is apt to encourage his supporters anyway. Maybe it is rats now abandoning the obviously sinking USS Empire. Or maybe things will get back to normal next week, with Epstein replaced by someone less prominent.

Bruce/July 29, 2019

Little evidence indeed. Thank you that was most insightful – their will be a lot of power, resources and motivation to replace Epstein regardless of what exactly is happening with him right now. This is perversion and depravity at a very mean and powerful scale. His arrest and conviction or death will not change the motivations or the perspectives of the participants. This is addictive behavior, and some very influential people are going to be hard pressed for their fix. Desperate people do desperate things.

Deacon Blues/July 27, 2019

Outstanding essay, Caitlin. Everything has to do with “protecting the dollar.” Which really means protecting the “printing press.” Thanks also for pointing out that all the perceived “threats” to America are bogus. America does have two giant oceans that defend it from attack, and it would be kind of hard for Iran to “steal America’s freedoms” even if it wanted to. I recently wrote an essay pointing out that the three premises/assumptions that underly American foreign policy are all ridiculous. So ridiculous, a 6th grade student should get this. It was published at Zero Hedge. Here’s the link.

Rigby/July 27, 2019

US behaviour is identical to that of the UK and France when Germany tried to join the world trade and colonialism gravy train; they organised WWI to slice off the most productive part of Germany, and 20 years later false flagged themselves into WWII to finish the job. Didn’t work, just as their US European alliance is not going to work with Russia and China. Plus ca change and all that.

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

is Germany completely domesticated now? WBUR reported in the eve of the last election that Trump came out as a german american, not a swiss…. i realised that being a german american was something to be ashamed of in this country….

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

well said, Caitlin.

lemme summarize it in two points: 1. there’s no “we” between the 1% (the Deep State and their global financial parasites) and the 99% (people across the borders and the globe). the two share NO one interest. 2. the global 1% serves NO political or any other creed: they only serve themselves (money and power to exploit and rule the 99%). BDS the 1% in everyway you can!

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

Will/July 27, 2019

Chico/July 27, 2019

Why are we propagandized continually? Because the sociopaths running this world are totally focused on controlling us via deception and manipulation. Their psychological disease directs them to behave in precisely this way. Asking why the propaganda has any particular appearance is almost a futile exercise. While the actual content of the propaganda is constantly changing, the intent is always the same — deceive the people, shape their beliefs, and thereby steer their thoughts in specific directions. Make them love their leaders and their slavery. After all, none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

Josef/July 27, 2019

Neatly explains then current “Russia-Russia-Russia” hysteria here in the Imperial US homeland which, if you are not plugged into the Matrix, seems surreal and comical. Thanks for the link to the Grayzone interview.

Rael Nidess/July 27, 2019

I am curious though, you (among many other writers who similarly comment on this issue) state:

…it was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs.”

… but fail to credit its creator. He, and his eponymous ‘doctrine’ should be used to explain all U.S. foreign policy actions since he end of the Cold War since, they all derive from it and are designed to advance it.

This NeoCon determination to advance U.S. interests at all costs, including war) has a specific name, it is called “The Wolfowitz Doctrine” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine] so called because it was NeoCon Paul Wolfowitz (Under Sec’y of Defense in the Bush ’43 administration) who advanced it.

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

Molloy/July 29, 2019

hmmmmm……. …. again, isn’t this diverting attention away from puppet masters onto the greedy puppets – Wolfo et al – who needed job money-bribe-status acting as ‘under sec’ to military lilliputian whatever? …honourable humans would easily sue for defamation in US, would they not?! Criminal facilitators do not sue because they are paid money to ‘take the hit’. And make no fuss.

Ishkabibble/July 27, 2019

Mike K, how to get the ogres off our back. .. Candidates for public office have to elucidate an alternative arrangement – a COMPELLING “vision” of a better world. After all is said and done, these candidates for public office are people, just like you and me and all the readers and commenters here. They have to have a “platform” on which to run. (What would YOU “run on”?) .. The present crop of candidates all have platforms that they hope will distinguish themselves from the crowd and be “popular” with the mass of voters. If that platform is much different than that of present and past candidates, the MSM labels that candidate with the negative term “populist”. This is because any candidate who does not want to continue the present arrangement, and is nevertheless perhaps increasingly popular, must be destroyed and labels are a potent way to do that. .. That’s the job of the Elite-owned MSM — to keep the present fatally-flawed arrangement exactly as it is – one which absolutely requires a perpetually expanding human population AND a perpetually expanding MIC by “whatever it takes”, which includes destroying candidates who, again, stand for office against that 70+ year-old tradition. This is the reason that Trump got what he got from the MSM literally 5 seconds after shaking hands and making nice with Mr. Putin in Helsinki. That mere handshake and smile threatened to end the US Elite’s perpetual war for USD hegemony and, thus, the justification for the MIC whose end would mean the end of the US economy as it is presently “designed”. .. Once again with feeling…………. the one and the only way that the human race is going to survive is if anti-war candidates for congress and POTUS are elected by US voters and that is NEVER, repeat NEVER, repeat NEVER going to happen unless those candidates spell out in great detail a plan in which the present DoD contract system is MAINTAINED, but the contracts are for the production of bullet trains instead of bullets, a Liberty-Ship-like production system for building wind turbines, solar panels, vanadium-flow storage batteries, etc. and to rebuild vital infrastructure. .. Half-baked antiwar candidates who do NOT present such a plan will NEVER be elected! Those millions directly or indirectly employed by the military industrial complex are NEVER going to vote for antiwar candidates whose election would guarantee their unemployment. These Americans don’t give a shit how many countries and how many millions of people have to be destroyed if that means they keep their jobs! Recent history has PROVEN that this is true! .. Again, unless Gabbard, Sanders, Yang etc. start elucidating such a DETAILED plan very soon and start a public discussion about it, the next election, just like all the elections of the past, will not alter by one degree the trajectory of the US’s insatiable-war/USD-hegemony, environment-destroying juggernaut. And that will inevitably lead to WWIII or environmental catastrophe. .. There is still faint hope that grows dimmer by the day. To any candidate who can “build” that better world in the minds of voters, IMO, “they will come”. That, IMO, is the one and only way (the only “sequence” or “chain of events”) that the Elite can be removed from political power.

Robin/July 28, 2019

Actually there is a candidate who has spent the last decade or so creating a model of a new system of voting, whereby the voters make laws, and bypass the corrupt congress. Sen. Mike Gravel, senator from Alaska for 12 years, is a real progressive, from way back when the Democratic party had a leftish side. He is outspoken, intelligent, and has a plan. That is why he is being blacklisted and kept from the debates. Look for his participation in the 2008 debates, which got him blacklisted (there are clips on You Tube). His book is out this summer, outlining the process for the people to draft and make laws. I think we all know what we want, but like abused children, we are told everyday that we cannot have `clean water, clean air, healthy food, happy children, decent public gathering places, good local schools, enough jobs for all, no toxic chemicals in our environment or bodies. This is all common sense. Even poor countries manage to deliver these things to their citizens. Check out Mike Gravel, stop watching the election distraction show, where whoever wins is decided by others and beforehand. Get out into your communities, and take back the power.

garys/July 27, 2019

I don’t know–I get real confused when people try to discuss global events without the inclusion of the Zionist. It’s kind like walking around in the Winchester House–with all of these stairways that lead to nowhere. We attempt to paste real rationale reasons behind undecipherable events and then suggest the underlying motives: I say let’s keep it simple and always on the table. There is a tiny group of people who see the world [that’s planet Earth] as a box–that the box has both natural and man-made resources–and the control of these finite resources– gives those in control unlimited power over the rest if us. The tiny group we could easily label the Zionists–and if you want and need [God forbid–how many more reminders will it take] an intelligent look at this groups global influence–listen to Robert David Steel–an extremely intelligent, loyal and diligent Latino American who knows what’s going down: https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/opinion-conservative/2019/3476338.html

Paul Costello/July 27, 2019

Michel Bélisle/July 27, 2019

I think that again (and it is no surprise) somebody somewhere do not want this to be known but I will repeat it:

“What we are witnessing in this world is just for show.

All the countries in this world are under the same control and are working to let the power in the hands of a transnational elite.

Russia, China, the US are all part of the show.

Proof of that is that the Russian and Chinese elites, similarly to the US elites, have seen wreckages of airplanes in the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania on 9-11. And they admit that the US have sent men to the moon…

The show must go on… but I am fed up.

Fortunately, according to the prophecy of the popes by the great Irishman Saint Malachy, pope Francis is the last pope who will be witness to the Second Coming of Jesus and the Final Judgement of mankind.

So, it could be any day now. And I pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus because I have really, but really seen enough of all that bullshit.”

Ishkabibble/July 27, 2019

Here’s another “narrative” for your entertainment and it really pops. .. The short version is that what you are seeing and hearing 24/7 on the corporate MSM is the lead-up to a E.L.E. nuclear war. Is that interesting enough for you? Does it pop and grab your attention? Maybe the “why” of it will be more interesting. .. George Kennan was an influential US VIP for many years. He said the following only four or five short years before the end of the Soviet Union. .. “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.” .. Read the last sentence of the Kennan quote about 10 times before you read on, because at the time he said it, Kennan meant EXACTLY what he said, and ever since the USSR’s collapse, Kennan’s prediction has been time and time again PROVEN to be amazingly prescient. What we average people have an ABSOLUTE DUTY to fully realize and fully appreciate is that what Kennan said is EVEN MORE TRUE TODAY than it was in Kennan’s time. .. After the USSR collapsed to “The Russian Federation”, the US LITERALLY had no other choice than to CONTINUE its rampage around the world. .. But economic “things” started to go off the rails in 2007. Elite VIPs Paulson, Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, etc. were ABSOLUTELY CORRECT when they said that the ancient financial system (of a microscopic percentage of the population owning the vast majority of wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment) would have “failed” had those VIPs not done what they did. By failure I mean that that microscopic percentage would have suffered massive losses on their investments; that many of their major banks would have gone out of business and that many of the Elite would NOT have been able to remain the Elite. Most importantly of all, the US’s perpetual wars in support of USD hegemony would have had to come to a screeching halt along with its catastrophic effect on, again, the US’s war-based economy. .. So the president before Trump and the bone-ignorant US Congress Of Morons literally forced future US taxpayers to rescue the Elite. So the Elite have remained the Elite; the Too Big To Fail (TBTF) banks were officially born and the US’s global war to maintain USD hegemony has continued unabated ever since. .. It is important to fully realize and appreciate that perpetual war and fiat, Fiat, FIAT!, printed-out-of-thin-air USD (NOT gold-backed USD) go hand in hand, because domestic and foreign mercenaries paid by fiat USD now REPLACE US-citizen-draftees. Should those mercenaries “lose confidence in” USD, US citizens and their children are going to have to fight and die around the world for USD/corporate hegemony. .. Unfortunately for humanity, what those very few human beings did to rescue the Elite and create the TBTF banks was even worse that the actions of Nixon ending gold-based currency and Carter’s “Carter Doctrine”. Those panicked, impulsive actions steered the traditional whatever-you-want-to-call-it system into what is now essentially a worldwide laboratory experiment, or, as Lord Jacob Rothschild bluntly put it in 2016, .. “The six months under review have seen central bankers continuing what is surely the greatest experiment in monetary policy in the history of the world.” .. As incredible and ridiculous as it may sound, the model — the experiment — that the increasingly-desperate Elite are trying to foist onto the people of the world all boils down to one thing. Humanity’s ultimate purpose is to SERVE the TBTF banks (more specifically, the Elite that runs and profits from them), NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND — THE WAY THAT THINGS USED TO BE BEFORE this ongoing experiment. .. Not so subtly, the Elite are telling us that in order for “us” to avoid yet another “financial crisis”, the Elite’s TBTF banks must FIRST have absolute control over each and every THING and each and every PERSON on planet earth and that WE are going to have to pay THEM a lot more money for their services. .. Experimental negative-interest-rate policy along with their necessary experimental abolishment of cash, are a last-ditch, now-fully-conscious effort by the inheritance/investment-owners to strip-mine some more profit from the no-inheritance owners, thus momentarily delaying the need for yet another astronomically-expensive and destructive war. .. But unfortunately, almost as if by the intentional design of an “invisible hand”, even all of these desperate, experimental measures CAN NOT and WILL NOT garner enough profit for the Elite’s centuries-long accumulation of inheritances/investments. When the panic-inducing pressure of impending loss on those investments inevitably becomes too great for the whatever-you-want-to-call-it present system to contain, the world will once again explode into full-scale, all-out war — this time, nuclear war, which will, this time around the “business cycle”, truly be the war to end all war. At least its end will come very fast. The mass die-off will take just a few more weeks. .. The total loss of INDIVIDUAL citizens’ privacy and liberty to an increasingly-secretive, tyrannical, intrusive, inquisitive, lawless, ruthless government/Elite are the inevitable domestic collateral damage caused by that Elite’s “foreign” policy. Foreign policy has “come home” and become domestic policy. “Threats from within” are becoming the focus of the Elite’s experimental national security state. Part of that “threat” comes from willing or unwitting agents of foreign powers — antiwar candidates, for example. .. The wars of USD/corporate hegemony and supporting MSM propaganda machine, as well as various Fed-funded hand-outs to keep the serfs in a semi-comatose, manageable state, are astronomically expensive, but all Jerome and Mario’s not-so-invisible hands have to do is hold down their computers’ “0” keys for longer and longer periods of time and all of the Elite’s invoices will magically get paid and their wealth infinitely increased. .. So here’s the US’s new, completely-experimental economic system in a nutshell. Jerome (etc.) holds down the “0” key for longer and longer periods of time; the TBTF banks get bailed out by taxpayers time and time again; the US national debt skyrockets and the US’s printed-out-of-thin-air-USD-funded MIC literally terrorizes the rest of the world into accepting those “dollars” as payment for their REAL goods. Any nation that does not comply with US diktat or fails to accept fiat USD as payment for its real products either has its government replaced or is reduced to stone-age chaos. .. The TBTF banks’ protective political insulation is very thick and the number of Jerome’s (etc.) fiat money is infinite, so, unfortunately, it’s beginning to look like the one and only thing that will stop the US’s new, politically-unstoppable, “whatever it takes” perpetual-war/TBTF-bank-based economic EXPERIMENT will be a nuclear strike undertaken by one or more of the ever-increasing number of nations who are being victimized by it. ******* . Now, what good does it do me to state my narrative and what good does it do anybody who actually “believes” my narrative? Absolutely none, because what is desperately, desperately needed is a “narrative” that describes an ALTERNATIVE “arrangement” to the one we live in now — one that describes a day to day, “better” economic system/matrix in minute detail. That should be at least part of your mission, Caitlin. It’s going to take a lot more than reporting “truth” to save humanity from itself. Although a description of reality is a necessary first step to explain why reality must be changed, it is what follows that realization that is IMO most important. The commenters here need a GOAL to shoot for AFTER they eliminate the Elite. .. Again, the millions of people employed by the MIC and its spin offs already understand very well that their vote for an anti-war candidate is a vote for their own unemployment. Therefore, they’re going to be sticking with the “Russia/China bad” narrative as “truth” and ignore alternative narratives that actually describe reality. They’ll bet their and their children’s lives on the US conquering the world without any blowback from the ones their weapons are killing rather than experience certain unemployment. That’s reality. That’s how bad things are. Is it entertaining to know these things? You tell me. .. Chris Hedges wrote a book about the US entitled “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle”. Chris observes that many people in the US now think that if they pray hard enough FOR something and believe sincerely enough IN something, that that something will come to pass or into existence. If it doesn’t, that means that those people didn’t believe or wish hard enough. .. Both inside and outside of government, there are a lot of people who, for one reason or another, hate Agent Orange (AO) with every fibre of their being. Their hatred is almost palpable. They’re praying to God every night to some how, any way, remove the cad, thug, monster, racist, fascist, insane, you-name-it AO from the holy office of the US presidency. Some are a bit more active with their hatred. For example, Trump’s “walk of fame” star has been demolished at least a couple of times by people using various blunt-force tools including a pickaxe and sledgehammer. (A little voice is telling me that Trump’s bust is not going to appear anytime soon on an expanded Mount Rushmore.) .. The wonderful, mercenary MSM sees gold in them thar Black Hills of popular hatred. People pay money to see movies in which the good guy/nation/etc. vanquishes the bad guy, even if in reality the good guy is actually the bad guy; for example, all the movies in which the now-venerated agents of the US government whup some Russian/Chinese/Iranian/North Korean/or-whomever-the-chosen-enemy-of-the-day’s ass. Hollywood’s philosophy is “give ’em what they want” and, by Jesus, that’s exactly what Hollywood does. .. The same is nowadays true in the “entertainment news” business — give ’em whatever gives the most clicks. And what millions upon millions of the Empire of Illusion’s people are willing to click/pay for is “news” that Orange is, for whatever reason for today, a very bad man and must be impeached, impeached, impeached. .. Supply and Demand; it’s as simple as that. Quite obviously, truth isn’t entering this equation because the lying, warmongering whores NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, CBS, NPR and the other MSM are making more and more money peddling lies. .. Back in my youth I used to wonder, as I stood in line at the supermarket till, who bought those “National Enquirer” tabloids on the rack with the “Mom has alien baby!” headline on the front page. The “report” must have been true because a photo of the little devil accompanied the story. Now I know. Millions of like-minded people are buying the lies and we know why — their overpowering HATE for Orange (and their true, deeply held belief that aliens are having sex with the women of planet earth because their world is dying and they need to save their race). .. Nobody is going to pay to go see a movie in which US planes bomb/blow up civilian men, women, children and infants in a dozen different nations into a million pieces because “there’s no money in it.” But, as Howard Beale said in one of his on-air diatribes in the movie “Network”, “If you want the truth, go to your gurus; go to yourselves, because you’re never going to get the truth here. We’ll tell you whatever shit you want to hear. We’re in the boredom killing business. None of it is true!” .. Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men” was exactly right. We “can’t HANDLE the truth!” For just one example, the US of today is certainly the greatest threat to world peace that has ever existed in the world. Big news, right? Yet that “idea”, that “story” is NOT going sell many newspapers or get many clicks in the US of A because Americans won’t believe it. They’ll think it’s “fake news” that has been bought and paid for by Putin. They’ll think that because that’s what their favorite MSM news “star” is going to tell them, because he knows that that is what they want to hear. (Which came first, the chicken or the egg?)

Iskabibble/July 27, 2019

mike k/July 27, 2019

Your question about what we do after getting rid of the evil oligarchs is appropriate, but only meaningful IF we get rid of them. As Caitlin said in a recent essay, the truth (however unpleasant) is that we don’t have a clue how to get these ogres off our backs. Finding a way to perform that necessary surgery is our real basic concern now. And time is running out to find such a method!

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

BDS is the only way, not the best way. remember Ghandi? he made salt out of the sea water, and spinned for his own loin cloth, in order not to participate in and contribute to his owwn oppressors’ system. and it is virtually risk and effort – free.

Chris C./August 11, 2019

The bank bailouts were absolutely not necessary. Anyone who fell for it was fooled by the usual fear-mongering. I’m almost certain that all of those who supported the bailouts were also those who didn’t see the crash coming. John Hussman’s writings contain financial accounting explanations for why the bailouts were not needed.

Michel Bélisle/July 27, 2019

All the countries in this world are under the same control and are working to let the power in the hands of a transnational elite.

Russia, China, the US are all part of the show.

Proof of that is that the Russian and Chinese elites, similarly to the US elites, have seen wreckages of airplanes in the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania on 9-11. And they admit that the US have sent men to the moon…

The show must go on… but I am fed up.

Fortunately, according to the prophecy of the popes by the great Irishman Saint Malachy, pope Francis is the last pope who will be witness to the Second Coming of Jesus and the Final Judgement of mankind.

So, it could be any day now. And I pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus because I have really, but really seen enough of all that bullshit.

Hi! Harreson Waymen from Canada. What an awesome article Caitlin. Thanks so much for sorting all that bullshit out for me. Your clarity about international issues is very commendable. Good work. I send you to everyone I know that’s antiestablishment. That’s pretty much everybody. Than ks again Caitlin.

Lloyd/July 27, 2019

Remind us who was actually in charge when the US Administrative Branch provided multiple cross checking signatories which approved the sale of uranium to a corporation known to be controlled by a hostile foreign entity. Name names, name a “charitable foundation”, follow the millions in monies… Now ask yourself, “Why all the effort to wallpaper Trump and saturate the mass media with Russia, Russia, Russia?”.

Lloyd/July 28, 2019

argumentum ad hominem?

Even with a presumed log in one eye, my other eye should not be assumed so faulty as that. 😉 Is Odin blind to half of what is going on? I think not.

I do observe that a simple role call of the current President’s cabinet members does not seem much changed from the “rotten bastards” of yore. We might also take note of the rouge’s gallery of “consultants” and “advisers” still being brought in from time to time which have “served” their nation in the past. (I started the last sentence using “our nation” but on second thought had to change it.)

Besides, I’ve been paying attention to this bottomless rabbit hole stuff for a very long time and I’m very good at recognizing rotten bastards of most any ilk. Hint: We’re still falling.

Favorite beer? Dirty Bastard of course! Very dark, very rich, very strong and somewhat overpowering.

Quote of the day: Karma means I can rest easy at night knowing all the people I treated badly had it coming. – UK AKA, The devil made me do it. 9

M Droy/July 27, 2019

Nothing is about Russia itself. The “enemy”, the threat is China. To US trade, Economy and hegemony. In comparison to US and China, is China’s Canada. Only one way it can side longterm or short term.

In 1984 Winston Smith’s job is to change the historial record (old copies of the Times) to reflect the change in enemy of Oceania (US + Britain) from Eurasia (communist Europe) to Eastasia (China) 2019 is the year of “Google: search Russia, replace China).

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

it’s called divide and rule. at first USSR and China were both enemies of the global financial elites. then they were pitted against each other. later, the ghouls thought that china was finally in “our sphere of influence” and that the chinese were “our slaves and market forever.” LOL. the ghouls tried and tried to pit Russia and China against each other. so far, Xi and Putin outmanuvered the ghouls.

Robin/July 27, 2019

Her headline (in the video) is wrong. MSNBC and Russiagate in general have not particularly damaged the ‘Left’ because the Left in the US is minuscule. (Its views are widespread, but it has no broadly effective organizations.) The Democratic Party is not a Left party, it is centrist or right-wing. What Russiagate etc. damaged was the Democratic Party. Russiagate was invented to protect the established Democratic Party leadership from the just wrath of the Democratic proggies. It has now had the unfortunate effect (for the aforesaid leadership) of convincing the proggies, whose votes will be needed in 2020, that the fix is permanently in. I think the proggies are really fed up now. I can’t think of a Democratic candidate who would be at once acceptable to the party leadership whom they would vote for. Lesser-evillism isn’t going to do it for Biden or Harris.

Rick Patel/July 27, 2019

mike k/July 27, 2019

“We must rule the world absolutely, no matter what it takes” remains the constant theme song of the Empire. We must keep this overriding fact always in mind when trying to explain the madness of the modern world. If we forget this underlying narrative, we risk becoming bemused by a thousand little subplots. This agenda to claim the exceptional right to boss everyone on the planet is the master key to understanding our world today. Caitlin is reminding us of this in her excellent article. The complaints that “she did not mention my favorite topic” are irrelevant and distracting.

“western mass media outlets serve not a political party, nor even money, but the power structures of the western empire”.

Sorry, you are wrong here Caitlin. The media outlets are owned by the usury banking criminals and it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY (in interest payments to those same usury banking criminals on massively increasing national ‘debt’ ) And since they control the money through their ownership of the private central banks they HAVE ALL THE POWER!

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

Michael/July 27, 2019

“western mass media outlets serve not a political party, nor even money, but the power structures of the western empire”.

Sorry, you are wrong here Caitlin. The media outlets are owned by the usury banking criminals and it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY (in interest payments on massively increasing national ‘debt’ to those same usury banking criminals. And since they control the money through their ownership of the private central banks they HAVE ALL THE POWER!

Robyn/July 27, 2019

‘This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats’ chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up,” Ball argued.

As if the Democrats are going to stand for peace and social justice. Until voters realise that there is one over-arching party – the War Party and keep hand-wringing over the Democrats somehow not getting it right, we’re all stuffed. The whole system has to be swept away and replaced by government of the people, by the people, for the people.

LSJohn/July 27, 2019

“MSNBC… serves first and foremost the US national security state.” Largely true. It needs to be noticed that Russia provides support for Iran, Assad, and Hezbollah. These are not enemies #1, 2 and 3 of the US national security state, but the Israeli security state which receives high priority and deference in the planning and function of the US national security state.

Lloyd/July 27, 2019

Gotta wonder why the owners of major media continue to support their “news” agencies which miraculously manage to attract commercial advertisers in spite of continually turning in dismal ratings in terms of actual viewership? Methinks something is rotten to the core in Denmark.

Yes, Yes Yes, Ms Johnstone, Yes! When the USSR crumbled the United States showed its true colors by encircling Russia with military hardware and bringing former members of the Warsaw pact into NATO. Most of the worlds people now see ” The Evil Empire ” in its true light and savagery! Little by little the United States and Israel go down their road with fewer friends, fewer allies, and fewer chums to exploit. Look for the people of Saudi Arabia to hate their government for being a United States and Israeli puppet. Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth again!

elkojohn/July 27, 2019

Robyn/July 27, 2019

Levi Tate/July 27, 2019

Every President is made accutely aware of what happened to JFK. And aware of how easy it is to get away with it. – Planes were launched against the fall guys for the assassination – Cuba – that day in November 1963, but the planes were recalled. – Johnson had double-crossed his co-conspirators. There wasn’t going to be an attack against Cuba – thus precipitating the planned war against the USSR. – Robert Kennedy didn’t want to give the killers of his brother what they wanted – war against Cuba and then the USSR – so he temporarily joined LBJ in promoting the lone gunman theory. Bobby Kennedy told those close to him, that when he had more power – as President – he would get the real perpitrators. – Johnson was safe in a stalemate. Being inside the conspiracy he had the goods on elements within the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA.

Thomas Golden, Ph.D./July 27, 2019

cutthecord/July 27, 2019

LOL. agreed… my mom always said that ten strong men can’t stop one determined thief…. dick cheney also opined that the neos create 10 new realities while the enemies of the neos are analyzing one of the ten old realities created yesterday…

You still think 9/11 was Bin L. go here https://www.ae911truth.org/ for a physics lesson by people who attended colleges and majored in degrees most of us would be unable to equal. I believe it was most likely CIA/MOSSAD . Who is benefiting? Whose backyard are we fighting in. Who has a religious cause to rule the world.

As long as we turn a blind eye to those in Washington who hold two passports and one with a cultural, historic and religious affinity. This country will continue to roil in turmoil.

PCPrincess/July 27, 2019

Thanks Clint for bringing forth the truth and helping to ensure that it is not forgotten. The truth about 9/11 is available for anyone with the courage to see it.

Part of the problem I have with the attempt to rationalize ‘Russiagate’ (as well as other activities and ‘agendas’) is that it often times lends to much intelligence to the people involved. The beginning of ‘Russiagate’ was merely an attempt to blame an outside actor for the theft of documents from the DNC and Podesta, rather than allow Americans to know it was a theft from a person on the inside. The reason for the cover-up was clearly because of the murder of the person who was responsible for the theft of documents.

The instigators of this cover-up are very lucky that Assange remained true to his word not to reveal his sources.

From that point forward the cover-up took on a life of its own in the media and then subsequently the legislature and so on. These people are not as smart as people would like to think. Things just worked out the way they did as time moved forward.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to think that the warmongers haven’t latched on to the fall-out in order to benefit their agenda, however, I’m not just as inclined to think they are smart enough or even motivated enough to have had anything to do with the original purpose of using Russia as a scapegoat for the DNC and a murder.

Ted/July 27, 2019

Both CNN and MSNBC broke their prior patterns with the defeat of Hillary by Trump. Until then, both had consistently been subservient to power. Both were quite supportive of Dubya and all his wars. Chris Mathews on MSNBC was quite noticeable because he had begun as a staffer for a Democratic Speaker of the House, and by the early 2000’s was strongly supporting Bush and his wars. That was back when MSNBC fired Phil Donahue. CNN used to change its White House correspondent with the change of the party in the WH, to make sure the two were closely aligned. CNN and MSNBC both noticeably switched from being Bush/Cheney friendly to Obama friendly in 2008. But after they were stunned by the people not voting for Hillary like both told them to do, both CNN and MSNBC decided not switch to follow the power this time around. A CNN White House correspondent being hostile to the person in the WH had not happened before.

It’s terribly tempting to want to feed the hungry proletariat the meal they desire. But each of those comics you mention have all made me laugh hard. Much of late night comedy now sadly is remarkably interchangeable. Don’t despair https://t.co/MePoHPzcJq

@RobSchneider This is exactly why I reserve a special hatred for comedians like Bill Maher, Steve Colbert, Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah who sell their talent to the churning out of propaganda for establishment power structures. https://t.co/vTVPNe3kU8

Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

People like Ashton Kutcher imagine that the so-called “center” is called that because it sits smack dab in the middle of the ideological spectrum between communism and fascism, right in that moderate sweet spot that respects capitalism and private ownership without flying off the deep end into Nazi-like tyranny. In reality, the status quo exists entirely outside any left-right paradigm. It’s neither “left” nor “right” to give total control of the western world to an alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies who seek to expand their power and wealth by destroying our ecosystem, waging endless wars, and gradually shoring up more and more control of their citizenry via internet censorship, surveillance and police militarization. It’s just crazy.

I’m picking on Ashton not because he occupies some special place in all this, but because he doesn’t. He’s just an illustration of how blind people have become to the real threat that’s right in front of them, and how normalized insanity has become.

People who identify as “left” see the ruling power establishment as right-wing, people who identify as “right” see the ruling power establishment as left-wing, and people who identify as “center” see themselves as moderates whose normal, healthy way of life is under threat by the “far right” and “far left”. But really all that’s happening is a few assholes fucking over everyone else, which is no more “left” or “right” than a terrorist attack. The left versus right argument doesn’t even make sense until this far more pressing issue has been resolved. A Bernie supporter and a Trump supporter are arguing about left versus right while trapped in a room with a tiger who’s eating them both alive.